Bhubaneswar, Sep 25 (PTI) BJD president Naveen Patnaik on Friday demanded that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar must resign immediately and that the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls must be revisited.
His remarks came amid a newspaper report of differences within the three-member Election Commission over several decisions and instructions relating to electoral-roll revision, including deletion and addition of names, changes in forms for new voters, and access to voter data.
“Because of the sharp differences between election commissioners and the chief election commissioner, the CEC should immediately resign, and the whole SIR process should be thoroughly revisited,” Patnaik told reporters outside the Assembly.
The leader of the opposition in Odisha said the BJD has been against this SIR process from the very beginning.
Earlier, the party had alleged several discrepancies in the SIR exercise in the state and claimed that over 25 lakh eligible voters were deleted from the electoral rolls.
